After more than two decades as a psychotherapist specializing in humansexualityand intimacy, I’ve heard just about every excuse imaginable related toinfidelity, especially from the men I have seen. Whatever they’re doing that violates the boundaries of theirmarriage, those who cheat will convince themselves that they’re not doing anything wrong, that they’re not hurting anyone, and that anybody who thinks their behavior is a problem should just back off. When caught, these men will most often defend their actions with statements like:

*.What’s the harm inflirting? If I’m not taking these women to bed, I’mnot cheating.
*.If my wife isn’t giving me what I want sexually, it’s OK for me to chase other women.
*.I’m only looking at porn. That’s not sex. So I’m not cheating.
*.Yes, I’m on Ashley Madison, but I only send texts and swap photos. That’s no different than looking at porn, so I’m not cheating.
*.It’s just a webcam! I’ll never actually meet these other women, let alone touch them or have sex with them, so there’s no way this ischeating.
*.When I’m out of town on business, all bets are off. Sex in another state doesn’t count as cheating
.*.MouthAction isn’t really sex, so what I did doesn’t count as cheating.



*.If I’m not inlovewith the other woman, it’s no different than masturbating. And every guy masturbates, regardless of whether he’s married.To be perfectly honest, the most difficult part of working with a philandering husband can be gettinghim to understand and accept that he did in fact cheat, and that even if he doesn’t see it that way, his wife does, and that’s what really matters if he wants to stay married. Essentially, rather than accepting blame for ruining the trust in their marriage, these men minimize, justify, rationalize, and place blame. In thetherapybiz, we call this sort ofbehavior “denial.”Denial, in this context, is a series of internal lies, with each lie supported by other lies, and those lies supported by still more lies, and so on. To an outside observer, a cheater’s many excuses hold water approximately as well as a leaky sieve. Nevertheless, cheating husbands typically think their logic isflawless. And their willful ignorance can go on for years – usually until the infidelity is discovered and sometimes even past that. Consider,for instance, the infamous statement: I did not have sexual relations with that woman. Those words were uttered, in utmost sincerity, by William Jefferson Clinton, a sitting president who somehow convinced himself that oral intercourse didn’t count as actual sex. And Slick Willy is hardly the only man who’s tried to justify his philandering in this injudicious way.Denial: The FavoritesA 21st century version of the aforementioned “I did not put my penis in her vagina” excuse crops up with digital infidelity. Basically, guys go online and look at porn, or play virtual reality sex games, or flirt and sext and maybe even mutuallymasturbatevia webcam, and then, because they haven’t hooked up with anyone in-the-flesh, they convince themselves that they’ve been completely, totally, and delightfully faithful to their wives. They think that because their behavior took place in the virtual rather than the real world, it’s not really cheating.Another popular excuse centers on the belief that as a man it is a biological imperative/right to spreadone’s seed as widely as possible. Themen who use this justification seem to think that if their particulargenepool is cut off, the humanracewill shrivel up and die out. These are the same guys who tend to argue that if they weren’t “emotionally attached” or “in love” with the other woman, then it wasn’t cheating. Essentially, they place their cheating behaviors on the same level as masturbating – no more, no less. Another major form of denial, and this one is used by almost every guy who cheats, is based on the following lie: “What my wife doesn’t know about can’t possibly hurt her.” This, of course, is total BS. In reality, even when a betrayed wife doesn’t officially know that she’s been cheated on, she is almost certainly aware of the emotional (and maybe physical) distancing in the marriage. In other words, the husband pulls away as part of his attempt to keep his behavior secret, and the wife recognizes this fact. Sometimes the betrayed wife, not fullyunderstandingwhat is going on, will internalize blame for this, wonderingwhat it is that she did to cause this rift. If there are kids, they too will notice this distancing, and they will wonder, either secretly or aloud, whytheir father is not as available as he used to be. Sadly, kids are even morelikely than wives to think that this is somehow their fault.Do You Still Think You’re Not Cheating?Whatever forms of denial that cheating husbands are using, if they cling to the idea that they’ve done nothing wrong, I typically ask them to answer the following question: “If your activity does not count as cheating, they why have you been hiding it from your wife?Of course, most guys have a pat answer for this. “I don’t want to cause her any pain.” This, of course, is a backdoor admission that they know that if their wife finds out, trouble will ensue. So when I hear this excuse I gently point this fact out to them, and then I mention thattheir secret keeping, rather than protecting their wives, might be designed to protect themselves and their illicit behavior.If and when cheating men are particularly determined to believe their own denial on this particular point, no matter how ridiculous theirlies sound to an impartial observer (me, for instance), I suggest that maybe they’re right. Maybe what they’ve been doing isn’t cheating, and isn’t a problem. Then I suggest that to find out for sure they should simply tell their wife about whatever it is they’ve been doing, holding nothing back, and if she doesn’t have a problem with it, then they cancontinue their behaviors with a cleanconscience.Unsurprisingly, nobody takes me up on this. And why would they? I mean,if these men were in a relationship inwhich they thought their secretive behaviors would be OK with their wife, then they wouldn’t be sneaking around in the first place. They would be out in the open right from the start.Infidelity: What Is It Really?Once upon a time, before this crazy Internet thing came along, defining sexual infidelity was pretty easy. If a guy was having sex outside of his supposedly monogamous relationship, he was cheating. Sometimes therapists had to explainthat yes, MouthAction still counts as sex (See: Clinton, Bill), as do hand-jobs, heavy petting, and even just a little bit of kissing. But in general men who were stepping out on their wives knew exactly what they were doing. And when their wives found out, they nearly always knew for certain that they’d been cheated on.However, as alluded to earlier, digitaltechnologies have mucked this up. The once-clear line between monogamy and cheating has gone a bit fuzzy. Is chatting with your ex-girlfriend on social media cheating? Does the content of thosechats matter? Are you cheating if you set up a profile on an infidelity hookup app like Ashley Madison, even if you never do more than look around? Is masturbating to onlinepornographya form of cheating? What about masturbating to a live person at the other end of a webcam? Etc.A few years ago, in an attempt to provide clarity in regard to digital age sexuality and its place in the cheating spectrum,Dr. Jennifer Schneider, Dr. Charles Samenow, andI conducted a surveyof women whose husbands were engaging in significant amounts of extramarital sexual activity, either online or in thereal world. The most interesting and important finding of our study was that when it comes to the negative effects of sex outside a supposedly monogamous relationship, tech-based and real world sexual activities are no different. To the betrayed wife, thelying, the emotional distancing, and the pain of learning about the betrayal feel exactly the same regardless of venue.The results of this study confirmed what I’ve said and written about infidelity for many years – that it’s not any specific sexual act that doesthe most damage to the betrayed partner and the relationship; instead, it’s the constant lying, the emotional distancing, and the loss ofrelationship trust. In fact, for most betrayed wives the emotional betrayal associated with sexual infidelity is more painful and longer-lasting than the physical betrayal. Based on this knowledge, I have formulated the following digital-age definition of cheating:Infidelity is the breaking of trust thatoccurs when sexual and/or romantic secrets are deliberately kept from one’s spouse.One of the reasons I like this definition is that it encompasses both online and in-the-flesh sexual activity, as well as sexual and romantic activities that stop short of penis-into-vagina. Furthermore, the definition is flexible depending on the couple. In other words, it allows you and your wife to define your own version of sexual fidelity based on honest discussions and mutualdecision making. This meansthat it may be acceptable for you to look at porn (or to engage in some other form of extramarital sexual activity) so long as your wife knows about this behavior and is OK with it.On the other hand, if you are lookingat porn (or whatever) and keeping this a secret, or your wife knows about it but doesn’t find this behavior acceptable within the mutually agreed upon boundaries of your relationship, then you’re cheating.So, are you deliberately keeping sexual or romantic secrets from yourwife? If so, you are cheating. Period. End of discussion. And if you are not keeping sexual or romantic secrets from your wife, then you’re OK, as long as you’re not violating you and your wife’s mutually agreed upon relationship boundaries.
By
.Robert Weiss LCSW, CSAT-

So wrong, so right

U THINK I GET TIME TO DEY READ!!!!

She is merely suspicious but your conscience alone will say the truth.